Quaid-e-Azam MA Jinnah's Vision of Pakistan and Misaq-e-Madina

An ongoing debate about the vision of Pakistan's founder flares up every year around Christmas time which coincides with Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's birthday. It is centered on one key question: Did the Quaid want an Islamic state or a secular one?

Islamic or Secular Pakistan?

Here are a couple of excerpts from Quaid-e-Azam's speeches given at different times which are often cited in this "Islamic vs Secular Pakistan" debate:

"You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State"

“Who am I to give you a constitution? The prophet of Islam had given us a constitution 1,300 years ago. We have to simply follow and implement it, and based on it we have to establish in our state Islam’s great system of governance.”

The secularists insist that the first excerpt from the Quaid's speech of August 11, 1947 to the constituent assembly should be accepted as his true vision for a secular Pakistan. The Islamists vehemently disagree and cite the second excerpt in which the Quaid talked about the fact that "prophet of Islam had given us a constitution 1,300 years ago" and we must implement it.

Misaq-e-Madina: 

The question is: Do the two speech excerpts conflict or support each other? On the surface, the Quaid's speeches appear to send conflicting messages. However, a deeper examination of Misaq-e-Madina (Charter of Medina), Islam's first constitution approved by Prophet Muhammad (SAW), suggests the Quaid's speeches are consistent with each other and conform to the original Islamic constitution.

Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) Honored by US Supreme Court

Here's the opening line of Misaq-e-Madina:

"This is a document from Muhammad the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), governing relations between the Believers i.e. Muslims of Quraysh and Yathrib and those who followed them and worked hard with them. They form one nation -- Ummah."

It clearly says that all citizens of "Yathrib" (ancient name of Madina), regardless of  their tribe or religion, are part of one nation--"Ummah". So the word "Ummah" here does not exclude non-Muslims.

Further into the "Misaq" document, it says: "No Jew will be wronged for being a Jew. The enemies of the Jews who follow us will not be helped. If anyone attacks anyone who is a party to this Pact the other must come to his help."

The Mesaq assures equal protection to all citizens of Madina, including non-Muslim tribes which agreed to it. The contents of Misaq-e-Madina, Islam's first constitution approved by Prophet Mohammad 1400 years ago, appear to have inspired Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah vision of Pakistan where people of all religions and nationalities live in harmony with equal rights and protections under the law.

Two-Nation-Theory:

Some might now ask what was the need for the Two-Nation-Theory given the above vision of the Quaid? The Quaid's search for Pakistan as an independent state for Muslims was inspired to give India's minority Muslims better opportunities to grow and prosper. While it's true that Pakistan has not lived up to the Quaid's expectations, it is also true that, in spite of all their problems, Muslims in Pakistan are still much better off  than their counterparts in India.

An Indian government commission headed by former Indian Chief Justice Rajendar Sachar confirms that Muslims are the new untouchables in caste-ridden and communal India. Indian Muslims suffer heavy discrimination in almost every field from  education and housing to jobs.  Their incarceration rates are also much higher than their Hindu counterparts.

According to Sachar Commission report, Muslims are now worse off than the Dalit caste, or those called untouchables. Some 52% of Muslim men are unemployed, compared with 47% of Dalit men. Among Muslim women, 91% are unemployed, compared with 77% of Dalit women. Almost half of Muslims over the age of 46 ca not read or write. While making up 11% of the population, Muslims account for 40% of India’s prison population. Meanwhile, they hold less than 5% of government jobs.

Those who say that the Two-Nation-Theory died with the creation of Bangladesh in 1971 are wrong. They need to be reminded that the Lahore Resolution of March 23, 1940, in fact called for two "independent states", not "state", in Muslim majority areas of India in the north east and the north west. The other fact to remember is that Bangladesh did not choose to merge with India after separation from Pakistan.

Here's a video discussion on this and other current subjects:

http://vimeo.com/82796819



Jinnah’s birthday, Bangladesh Independence, Abdul Qadir Molla hanging, Aam Aadmi Party success India from WBT TV on Vimeo.

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Jaswant Lauds Jinnah

Are Muslims Better Off in Jinnah's Pakistan?

Comparing Pakistan and Bangladesh

Is This a 1971 moment in Pakistan's History?

Is Pakistan Too Big to Fail?

Global Firepower

Jinnah's Pakistan Booms Amidst Doom and Gloom

Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah's Vision of Pakistan

India Wins Freedom by Maulana Azad

Ayesha Jalal Taking On Pakistan's Hero

The Poor Neighbor by William Dalrymple

Iqbal and Jinnah

Are Muslims Worse Off in Jinnah's Pakistan?

As Pakistanis celebrate Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's birthday today on Christmas Day, there are some who are questioning the founder's wisdom in seeking partition of India to carve out Pakistan as an independent nation.  The doubters justifiably point to the rising tide of intolerance and increasing violence and  a whole range of problems and crises Pakistan is facing. They wonder aloud if it was a mistake to demand a separate country for Muslims of undivided India.

 

Wax Statues of Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi in Islamabad

Are the critics correct in their assessment when they imply that Muslims in Pakistan would have been better off without partition? To answer this question, let us look at the following facts and data:

1. Muslims, the New Untouchables in India:

While India maintains its facade of  religious tolerance, democracy and secularism through a few high-profile Muslim tokens among its high officials and celebrities, the ground reality for the vast majority of ordinary Muslims is much harsher.

An Indian government commission headed by former Indian Chief Justice Rajendar Sachar confirms that Muslims are the new untouchables in caste-ridden and communal India. Indian Muslims suffer heavy discrimination in almost every field from  education and housing to jobs.  Their incarceration rates are also much higher than their Hindu counterparts.

According to Sachar Commission report, Muslims are now worse off than the Dalit caste, or those called untouchables. Some 52% of Muslim men are unemployed, compared with 47% of Dalit men. Among Muslim women, 91% are unemployed, compared with 77% of Dalit women. Almost half of Muslims over the age of 46 ca not read or write. While making up 11% of the population, Muslims account for 40% of India’s prison population. Meanwhile, they hold less than 5% of government jobs.

2. Upward Economic Mobility in Pakistan: 

In spite of all of its problems, Pakistan has continued to offer  higher upward economic and social mobility to its citizens over the last two decades than India. Since 1990, Pakistan's middle class had expanded by 36.5% and India's by only 12.8%, according to an ADB report titled "Asia's Emerging Middle Class: Past, Present And Future".

Miles Corak of University of Ottawa calculates that the intergenerational earnings elasticity in Pakistan is 0.46, the same as in Switzerland. It means that a difference of 100%  between the incomes of a rich father and a poor father is reduced to 46% difference between their sons' incomes. Among the 22 countries studied, Peru, China and Brazil have the lowest economic mobility with inter-generational elasticity of 0.67, 0.60 and 0.58 respectively. The highest economic mobility is offered by Denmark (0.15), Norway (0.17) and Finland (0.18).

The author also looked at Gini coefficient of each country and found reasonably good correlation between Gini and intergenerational income elasticity.

 More evidence of upward mobility is offered by recent Euromonitor market research indicating that Pakistanis are seeing rising disposable incomes. It says that there were 1.8 million Pakistani households (7.55% of all households) and 7.9 million Indian households (3.61% of all households) in 2009 with disposable incomes of $10,001 or more. This translates into 282% increase (vs 232% in India) from 1995-2009 in households with disposable incomes of $10,001 or more. Consumer spending in Pakistan has increased at a 26 percent average pace the past three years, compared with 7.7 percent for Asia, according to Bloomberg.

3. East Pakistan Debacle: 

Critics love to point out Pakistan's break-up in 1971 as evidence of failure of Jinnah's Pakistan.
They lavish praise on Bangladesh and scold Pakistan as part of the annual ritual a few days before Quaid-e-Azam's birthday every year.

Economic gap between East and West Pakistan in 1960s is often cited as a key reason for the secessionist movement led by Shaikh Mujib's Awami League and the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. This disparity has grown over the last 40 years, and the per capita income in Pakistan now stands at more than twice Bangladesh's in 2012 in nominal dollar terms,  higher than 1.6 in 1971.

 Here are some figures from Economist magazine's EIU 2013:

Bangladesh GDP per head: $695 (PPP: $1,830)

Pakistan GDP per head: $1,410 (PPP: $2,960)

Pakistan-Bangladesh GDP per head Ratio: 2.03 ( PPP: 1.62)

4. Poverty, Hunger, Other Socioeconomic Indicators: 

 Pakistan's employment growth has been the highest in South Asia region since 2000, followed by Nepal, Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka in that order, according to a recent World Bank report titled "More and Better Jobs in South Asia".


Total employment in South Asia (excluding Afghanistan and Bhutan) rose from 473 million in 2000 to 568 million in 2010, creating an average of just under 800,000 new jobs a month. In all countries except Maldives and Sri Lanka, the largest share of the employed are the low‐end self-employed.


Pakistanis have higher graduation rates in education and suffer lower levels of hunger and poverty than Indians and Bangladeshis.

Pakistanis spend more time in schools and colleges and graduate at a higher rate than their Indian counterparts in 15+ age group, according to a report on educational achievement by Harvard University researchers Robert Barro and Jong-Wha Lee.

Here is a summary of Barro-Lee's 2010 data in percentage of 15+ age group students who have enrolled in and-or completed primary, secondary and tertiary education:

Education Level.......India........Pakistan

Primary (Total)........20.9..........21.8

Primary (Completed)....18.9..........19.3

Secondary(Total).......40.7..........34.6

Secondary(Completed)...0.9...........22.5

College(Total).........5.8...........5.5

College(Completed).....3.1...........3.9



According to the latest world hunger index rankings, Pakistan ranks 57 while India and Bangladesh are worse at 65 and 68 among 79 countries ranked by International Food Policy Research Institute in 2012.

World Hunger Index 2012

The latest World Bank data shows that India's poverty rate of 27.5%, based on India's current poverty line of $1.03 per person per day, is more than 10 percentage points higher than Pakistan's 17.2%. Assam (urban), Punjab and Himachal Pradesh are the only three Indian states with similar or lower poverty rates than Pakistan's.

Clearly, Pakistanis have not lived up to Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's vision of a tolerant and democratic Pakistan where the basic rights of all of its citizens, including religious and ethnic minorities, are fully respected. Popular Pakistani columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee put it well when he wrote: "Fortunately for him, Jinnah did not live long enough to see his dream betrayed by men unworthy even to utter his name. He died before total disillusionment could set in (though he had his suspicions that it was on its way) and broke his heart. From what we know of him, he was that rare being, an incorruptible man in all the many varied meanings of the word corruption, purchasable by no other, swayed by no other, perverted by no other; a man of honor, integrity and high ideals. That the majority of his countrymen have been found wanting in these qualities is this country's tragedy."

I do think, however, that all of the available and credible data and indicators confirm the fact that Muslims in Pakistan are not only much better off than they are elsewhere in South Asia, they also enjoy higher economic and social mobility than their counterparts in India and Bangladesh.

Here's a video report on widespread discrimination against Muslims in India:



Muslims in India by desitvonline
Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Upwardly Mobile Pakistan

Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's Vision of Pakistan

Rising Tide of Intolerance in Pakistan

Muslims-New Untouchables in India

Violent Conflict Marks Pakistan's Social Revolution

Economic Mobility in Pakistan

Poverty Across South Asia

Graduation Rates in Pakistan

Introspection of Pakistan's Creation

Celebrating Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah's Birthday

Lauded as a "Great Indian" recently by former Indian foreign minister Jaswant Singh in his book published this year, Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah was born 133 years ago on Christmas day in Karachi.

Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), the father of Pakistani nation, was a brilliant Muslim lawyer and a great statesman who lived a life that could be described as essentially westernized and secular. He was born in an Ismaili Shia Muslim family, raised in Karachi, receiving his early schooling at Karachi's Sindh Madressah and then received his law education in the U.K. He returned to the Sub-continent in 1896, married a Parsi woman Ruttie Petit, and practiced law in Bombay while waging a struggle for the independence of India from the British. He dressed mostly in the latest English-style suits of his time and spoke mostly in English with occasional Gujarati and Urdu. He did not have religious education and most ulema of his time agreed that his life did not conform to what most ulema considered "Islamic principles". In fact, the ulema on both sides of the partition debate, including Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani and Maulana Shabbir Ahmed Usmani, questioned Jinnah's credentials as a "good, practicing Muslim". He fought for India's freedom, first as the President of Indian National Congress, and then as the head of the Muslim League.

Having worked hard but unsuccessfully for Hindu-Muslim cooperation and unity, the Quaid--i-Azam was disillusioned with the Indian National Congress. He decided to join the Muslim League in 1935. After joining the Muslim League, his goal was to create a separate, independent homeland for Muslims of the Indian Sub-continent, where they could flourish freely without interference from or competition with the politically, educationally and economically dominant Hindu majority in South Asia. But he clearly opposed a "theocratic state" ruled by the religious elite (something like Iran's Guardian Council) with the ultimate veto power over the will of the people and the democratic processes and institutions. In fact, he believed in the separation of church and state, just as much as he favored the superiority of political leadership over the military officer corps in running the nation's affairs.

Here are three excepts from Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's most important speeches laying out his vision for Pakistan:

"You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State." Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah in address to first constituent assembly, Aug 11, 1947

"In any case Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state to be ruled by priests with a divine mission. We have many non-Muslims-Hindus, Christians and Parsis -- but they are all Pakistanis. They will enjoy the same rights and privileges as any
other citizens and will play their rightful part in the affairs of Pakistan." Quaid-i-Azam, Feb. 1948

“Never forget that you are the servants of the state. You do not make policy. It is we, the people’s representatives, who decide how the country is to be run. Your job is to only obey the decisions of your civilian masters.” Quaid-i-Azam's Address to Military Staff College, June 14, 1948.

In the current circumstances when Pakistan is experiencing daily carnage on its streets and the nation is threatened from the forces of darkness, feudal democracy or dictatorships disguised as saviors of the nation, it is important that we understand clearly what the founding father intended for Pakistan. With the above speech quotes from the Quaid-i-Azam, I will let the readers be the judge of his intentions to gain clarity on what Pakistanis must do to translate Quaid-e-Azam's vision into reality.

Related Links:

Jinnah's Vision for Pakistan

Christmas Greetings From Pakistan

Jinnah's Pakistan Booms Amidst Doom and Gloom

Jaswant Lauds Jinnah as "Great Indian"

Introspection of Pakistan's Creation

Muslims in India: Twocircles.net

All India Christian Council

South Asian Christians Celebrate Christmas in Fear

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Jaswant Lauds Jinnah as "A Great Indian"

Jinnah was a great Indian.

Gandhi himself called Jinnah a great Indian. Why don't we recognize that?

Jinnah stood against the might of the Congress party and against the British who didn't really like him.

Jinnah was not against Hindus.

Indian Muslims are treated as aliens.

Nehru's insistence on centralized system led to India's partition.


Senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh has said Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah was "demonized" by India even though it was Jawaharlal Nehru whose belief in a centralized system had led to the Partition.

Jaswant, whose book "Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence", is being released today, also said Indian Muslims are treated as aliens.

"Oh yes, because he created something out of nothing and single-handedly he stood against the might of the Congress party and against the British who didn't really like him...Gandhi himself called Jinnah a great Indian. Why don't we recognize that? Why don't we see (and try to understand) why he called him that," Singh said, when asked by Karan Thapar in an interview whether he viewed Jinnah as a great man.
He said he did not subscribe to the popular "demonization" of Jinnah.
Singh, a former external affairs minister, feels India had misunderstood Jinnah and made a demon out of him.

Contrary to popular perception, Singh feels it was not Jinnah but Nehru's "highly centralized polity" that led to the Partition of India.

Asked if he was concerned that Nehru's heirs and the Congress party would be critical of the responsibility he was attributing to Nehru for Partition, Singh said, "I am not blaming anybody. I am not assigning blame. I am simply recalling what I have found as the development of issues and events of that period."
Singh contested the popular Indian view that Jinnah was the villain of Partition or the man principally responsible for it. Maintaining that this view was wrong, he said, "It is. It is not borne out of the facts...we need to correct it."
He feels Jinnah's call for Pakistan was "a negotiating tactic" to obtain "space" for Muslims "in a reassuring system" where they would not be dominated by the Hindu majority.

He said if the final decisions had been taken by Mahatma Gandhi, Rajaji or Maulana Azad -- rather than Nehru -- a united India would have been attained, he said, "Yes, I believe so. We could have (attained an united India)."
Singh said the widespread opinion that Jinnah was against Hindus is mistaken.
When told that his views on Jinnah may not be to the liking of his party, he replied, "I did not write this book as a BJP parliamentarian. I wrote this book as an Indian...this is not a party document. My party knows I have been working on this."

Singh also spoke about Indian Muslims who, he said, "have paid the price of Partition". In a particularly outspoken answer, he said India treats them as "aliens".

"Look into the eyes of the Muslims who live in India and if you truly see the pain with which they live, to which land do they belong? We treat them as aliens...without doubt Muslims have paid the price of Partition. They could have been significantly stronger in a united India...of course Pakistan and Bangladesh won't like what I am saying.

In his book, Singh says Pakistan's "induced" sense of hostility to New Delhi is now somewhat "mellowed" and it is ready to accept a greater understanding of the many oneness that bond it with India. However, he admits Pakistan had chosen terror as an instrument of state policy to be used as a tool of oppression.

"...nemesis had to visit upon such policy planks; that malevolent energy of terror, by whatever name you choose to call it, once unleashed had to turn back upon its creator and to begin devouring it," Singh writes in "Jinnah - India, Partition, Independence", which will hit the stands tomorrow.

"This has now converted Pakistan into the epicenter of global terrorism, sadly, therefore, Talibanization now eats into the very vitals of Pakistan," the 669-page book says.

"Its (Pakistan's) induced and perpetual sense of hostility to India is now somewhat mellowed, it is more confident of itself, therefore, accommodative and is now ready to accept a greater understanding of the many oneness and unities that bond India and Pakistan together. Or is it really ready? Dare I ask?" Singh questions.
The BJP, however, maintains that Pakistan has been responsible for terrorist acts against India by elements trained and funded from its soil.

Source: ExpressBuzz India

Here's a video clip of Former Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh discussing the current situation in Pakistan:



Related Links:

Iqbal and Jinnah

Jinnah's Pakistan Booms Amidst Doom and Gloom

Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah's Vision of Pakistan

Eleven Days in Karachi, Pakistan

An Indian's View of Iqbal, Jinnah and Pakistan

By Aakar Patel
Allama Iqbal imagined Pakistan as a utopia in northwest India where Punjabis would do ijtihad and read Nietzsche. The Quaid-e-Azam ordered a Pakistan where religion would cease to be a matter for the state. But both men saw something magnificently dormant in the character of India’s Muslims, which would flower in isolation.

Iqbal returned from Europe in 1908 ashamed by the fall of Islam. He thought its return to glory could come through expelling the polluting influence of Indian culture. Iqbal understood our culture. In 1904, he wrote the song that still defines our culture best (Tarana-e-Hindi), and he translated Gayatri Mantra, the talismanic chant of the Upanishad, from Sanskrit. But Europe taught him that our culture was unable to compete. Muslims needed to break out. In 1910, he wrote Tarana-e-Milli.

Jinnah didn’t understand our culture much, but he thought that Muslims were a separate nation from Hindus, and could become modern once they were separated from India’s archaic culture. Both the poet and the lawyer thought that the solution to progress was to stop being Indian.

Iqbal died in 1938, Jinnah died in 1948. It would be illuminating to see their reaction as they flipped through a current issue of Nawa-i-Waqt (would have to be translated for Jinnah), the guardian of the ideology of Pakistan.

The Pakistan of Iqbal won against the Pakistan of Jinnah. Jinnah’s imaginary Pakistan was sent into the night with a pat on the head by Liaquat and the peerless Shabbir Usmani chanting their Qarardad-e-Maqasid, 60 years ago this month.

Now full-dress Sharia is upon Swat and the Punjabi’s head is cocked towards the frontier in curiosity. The world holds its breath.

The danger of Talibanization to Punjab does not come from the Pakhtun and his gun. Pakistan is 60 per cent Punjabi. Pakhtuns are only 15 per cent of its population and 20 per cent of its army. The danger to Pakistan comes from its inability to resist the pure ideas of the Pakhtun, of whom the Punjabi especially is enamored. Talibanization is happening in the mind. There is no resistance to it for two reasons: one is the lyrical call of Sharia which Muslims are drawn to in their quest for utopia. This will not change.

The second is the deliberate amputation of its own culture by the Pakistani state. This can change. Those who think Pakistan can resist the Taliban intellectually should look at the sequence on culture that unfolded after 1947.

Jinnah, one could say, stifled the voice of culture by giving Urdu a monopoly in 1948. Those who followed him beheaded it by banning freedom of religion (Liaquat in 1949), Indian cinema (Ayub in 1965), alcohol (Bhutto in 1977) and immorality (Zia in 1979). Under Nawaz Sharif in 1992, Pakistan banned the economy citing Riba, but the deranged state saved itself by lying, acting on the instinct of self-preservation, which by now was in short supply. The jihad in Kashmir under Benazir and then Musharraf completed the project of India as foreign and enemy and Indian culture as ‘kufr’, in the Pakistani mind.

But what is the culture of Pakistan? Do Pakistanis own a tradition of music and dance that is separate from India’s?

Mehdi Hasan and Ghulam Ali (who told me this on a flight to Bombay from Ahmedabad) enjoy performing in India because Pakistan’s middle-class is mostly illiterate about raag and taal. But this is our inheritance from the Sam Ved and from Amir Khusro. Why should it be disowned by Pakistanis?

High culture is rooted in tradition, and that is the first thing the religious state attacks. There is no culture of north Indian classical dance, Kathak, in Pakistan. Dance in general is absent (though apparently it is quite popular with Mehsud men, presumably grooving to the rhythm of pop-popping Kalashnikovs) because physical expression tends to be sensual and therefore deemed un-Islamic.

Culture is expression: the expending, the release of emotion that is drawn out through the desire for expression. Through words, through movement, through emotion, through music. Its expression is unique to cultures and in north India and Pakistan we have our unique culture: Indo-Persian (with stress on Indo).

Culture does not directly resist extremism; it only makes extremism difficult to penetrate by diverting the mind. The only way to fight extremism is through reason, but South Asians are not particularly good at reason because we don’t understand its vocabulary. Culture softens us, not in a bad way, and makes us less suicidal, which is a state where pristine religion leads us through its demand of purity.

We have no capacity to soften religion through reason because of our dependence on the great jurists of the 8th and 9th centuries. Iqbal spoke of the possibility of ijtihad, but how much ijtihad can happen in Pakistan, and for that matter in India, in defiance of Imam Azam?

The BBC carried a report last month titled ‘Can Pakistan’s Sufi tradition resist the Taliban?’ No, it can’t. Sufism can no more fight the Taliban than Mickey Mouse. Sufism is flight. It is escape. Those of us who have watched the ecstasy unfold at Nizamuddin Awliya and Baba Shah Jamal and a million heretical shrines in India, Hindu and Muslim, know that most of us can only be weekend Sufis. Sufism’s message of wahdat ul-wajood leads us away from doctrine, and that is an intellectual journey.

Sufism cannot fight because it makes no demands, and it has no daily ritual. It also respects Sharia, and can live besides it quite comfortably. The great Chishti Sufis of Delhi were namazis.

But the Talib cannot live beside Sufism. He will bomb the shrine of Rahman Baba. And now he has brought his war to Lahore’s Liberty Chowk. The message will come through to Punjab as it did in Swat: peace through Sharia.

How will Pakistanis resist the Talib’s hypnotic call? The problem in Pakistan is not that the Sri Lankan team got attacked; terrorism is truly global and affects us all. The problem is that Pakistanis are the only people in the world still unconvinced about who did it. Even intellectuals who are published in its newspapers convinced themselves through a convoluted or paranoid logic that ‘Muslims cannot do this’.

What should be said instead is: this is not us. And it really isn’t.

We have one of the world’s richest cultures of literature, music and dance. Pakistanis need to embrace it; it lies across the border. Bollywood is not just a film industry; it is the dispenser of Indo-Persian culture, and its voice; it is not in Bombay by accident. Shahrukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor would spend more time in Lahore’s courts defending themselves against fahashi, as did Manto, than on sets shooting. This difference in environment is not limited to cinema.

Pakistan can legitimately claim to have produced better classical poetry than India. But why? Independent Pakistan’s great poets, Faiz and Faraz, sang of protest, because they had much to protest about. Independent India’s great poets, Gulzar and Javed Akhtar, Shailendra and Anand Bakshi sing of love, because they operate in the natural cultural environment of South Asia. Pakistan’s poets do not. But its being across the border doesn’t mean that what’s produced in Bollywood is not Pakistani culture. It was before 1965.

Musharraf opened up Pakistan’s media, Zardari should open up India’s media to Pakistan. Not the news channels, the entertainment ones. He should leave in place the ban on India’s news channels (for that matter, being deprived of their news channels for a while would benefit Indians also). And he should open the borders more generally.

Pakistan should not wait for this to be reciprocal. After the savage attacks in Bombay, India will not immediately let Pakistanis freely onto its soil. But Pakistan should open itself up to India’s people, culture, tourists (they will come in droves) and trade. This does not mean surrender. Pakistan should remain a strong, sovereign Muslim nation.

But it must let loose its secret weapon on the Taliban. And that is our culture, our Indo-Persian heritage. We built it. We own it; we should own up to it.

Forget Tarana-e-Milli. Let’s sing Tarana-e-Hind-o-Pak. Allama Iqbal would approve, and so, I suspect, would Jinnah.

Source: The News

Related Links:

Jinnah's Vision of Pakistan

Pakistan's War is Cultural, Not Military

Musharraf's Legacy

Learning Facts versus Reasoning

Pessimist Pundits Gaining Strength in Pakistan

FATA Raid Charades Endanger Pakistan, World

Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah's Vision for Pakistan

With the passage of 60 years since Pakistan's independence, a lot of myths have grown around Pakistan's founding father and his vision and intentions for Pakistan. This blog post is an attempt to explain who the Quaid-e-Azam was and what he wanted Pakistan to become as a nation.

Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), the father of Pakistani nation, was a brilliant Muslim lawyer and political leader who lived a life that could be described as essentially westernized and secular. He was born in an Ismaili Shia Muslim family, raised in Karachi, receiving his early schooling at Karachi's Sindh Madressah and then received his law education in the U.K. He returned to the Sub-continent in 1896, married a Parsi woman Ruttie Petit, and practiced law in Bombay while waging a struggle for the independence of India from the British. He dressed mostly in the latest English-style suits of his time and spoke mostly in English with occasional Gujarati and Urdu. He did not have religious education and most ulema of his time agreed that his life did not conform to what most ulema considered "Islamic principles". In fact, the ulema on both sides of the partition debate, including Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani and Maulana Shabbir Ahmed Usmani, questioned Jinnah's credentials as a "good, practicing Muslim". He fought for India's freedom, first as the President of Indian National Congress, and then as the head of the Muslim League.

Having worked hard but unsuccessfully for Hindu-Muslim cooperation and unity, the Quaid--i-Azam was disillusioned with the Indian National Congress. He decided to join the Muslim League in 1935. After joining the Muslim League, his goal was to create a separate, independent homeland for Muslims of the Indian Sub-continent, where they could flourish freely without interference from or competition with the politically, educationally and economically dominant Hindu majority in South Asia. But he clearly opposed a "theocratic state" ruled by the religious elite (something like Iran's Guardian Council) with the ultimate veto power over the will of the people and the democratic processes and institutions. In fact, he believed in the separation of church and state, just as much as he favored the superiority of political leadership over the military officer corps in running the nation's affairs.

Here are three excepts from Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's most important speeches laying out his vision for Pakistan:

"You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the State." Quaid-e-Azam M.A. Jinnah in address to first constituent assembly, Aug 11, 1947

"In any case Pakistan is not going to be a theocratic state to be ruled by priests with a divine mission. We have many non-Muslims-Hindus, Christians and Parsis -- but they are all Pakistanis. They will enjoy the same rights and privileges as any
other citizens and will play their rightful part in the affairs of Pakistan." Quaid-i-Azam, Feb. 1948

“Never forget that you are the servants of the state. You do not make policy. It is we, the people’s representatives, who decide how the country is to be run. Your job is to only obey the decisions of your civilian masters.” Quaid-i-Azam's Address to Military Staff College, June 14, 1948.

In the current circumstances when Pakistan is threatened from the forces of darkness and dictatorships disguised as saviors of the nation, it is important that we understand clearly what the founding father intended for Pakistan. With the above speech quotes from the Quaid-i-Azam, I will let the reader be the judge of his intentions.

As you read and ponder, let me leave you with a relevant quote from popular columnist Ardeshir Cowasjee: "Fortunately for him, Jinnah did not live long enough to see his dream betrayed by men unworthy even to utter his name. He died before total disillusionment could set in (though he had his suspicions that it was on its way) and broke his heart. From what we know of him, he was that rare being, an incorruptible man in all the many varied meanings of the word corruption, purchasable by no other, swayed by no other, perverted by no other; a man of honor, integrity and high ideals. That the majority of his countrymen have been found wanting in these qualities is this country's tragedy."

In conclusion, I take the liberty of paraphrasing Iqbal's admonition to his fellow Indians in his time, as follows:

Na samjho gay to mit jao gay ay Pakistan walo
Thumhari dastan tak bhi no hogi dastanon main

Which loosely translates as:

Listen up, pay attention, and mend your ways, o Pakistanis
Or else thou shall perish and be consigned to the dustbin of history